Poison
by hushedgreylily
Summary: A good old fashioned 'Harry returns' fic, following a discussion with Laura (Ann Yates) that there aren't enough of them. Harry and Nikki scream at each other, are sure they're never going to be friends again and end up in bed together. Lots of angst, a fair amount of smut, and a slightly fluffy ending because I can't resist. Oneshot.


**POISON**

**A good old fashioned 'Harry returns' fic, following a discussion with Laura (Ann Yates) that there aren't enough of them.**

**Harry and Nikki scream at each other, are sure they're never going to be friends again and end up in bed together. Lots of angst, a fair amount of smut, and a slightly fluffy ending because I can't resist.**

**Disclaimer: there's no way things would have gone this way if it belonged to me.**

**Spoilers: Harry left. That was ages ago. Leo died. That was a pretty long time ago now, too.**

It's been five years, five years of hardly hearing anything from him, thousands of miles across both the ocean and his inability to _try hard enough_ to keep in touch with you, and he's there, shaking hands with the CEO of the Lyell Centre and signing something, like he's only been away five minutes.

He can't be here. He lost that right a long time ago, when he broke your heart and left without so much as an explanation to why it was all happening so suddenly. And when he didn't show for Leo's funeral – despite not being able to think about _anything else _in that moment, you'd somehow still expected the face you'd always known beside Leo in that congregation, that _look _that would have given you the strength you needed.

But he hadn't been there. He'd found a new life, another life, somewhere thousands of miles away, and he hadn't even come back when you'd put the man you'd both known as something of a father in the ground.

You'd drawn a line under everything you felt for Harry in that moment, because suddenly his offences weren't forgivable. They weren't all directly affecting you, anymore, it was as if he'd somehow tarnished the memory of everything the three of you had been together, through thick and thin, Harry-and-Nikki-and Leo.

You'd remembered, a cold chill running through you, Leo's arms around you in Budapest, letting you cry into his shoulder, understanding without words exactly how broken the loss of Harry Cunningham was making you.

Harry should have been there. Harry should have been there, when this time someone you loved really did die.

He's coming through the door into the lab, earning nothing but a brief smile and a casual handshake from both Jack and Clarissa, and within moments, he's in front of you.

"Niks-" he begins, but you cut him off, his voice sounding like daggers around your ears. _He can't be here, now. He left it too long. You're managing. You're Nikki-after-Harry._

"Last I heard, you were perfectly happy in New York."

You see Jack's head snap up from the microscope in your peripheral vision. You can hear the acid in your own voice.

He gives you a small, tired smile, that one you could never read. "It wasn't a job I could turn down." He says, as if that justifies anything. He lost the right a long time ago to slip back into what had once been. Sure, you'd been offered the professorship at the Lyell when Thomas Chamberlain had handed his notice in, to take a teaching position in Dublin, but you hadn't felt it belonged to you. It hadn't ever been anyone's job other than Leo's, even after all this time.

"It'll be good to work with you again." He breathes, so quietly you're almost unsure if he's said anything at all. But his face is softening slightly, as if he's trying to break down barriers the last five years have built. They're a lot sturdier than that.

"It won't be in anyway the same." There's ice on your tongue now. "You're my boss."

He looks as if he wants to say something back, but he opens and closes his lips on nothing at all. You turn your head back to the paperwork on the desk, wordlessly dismissing the man you used to call your best friend, your closest ally, your everything.

* * *

You manage to sneak out of the Lyell when your shift's over without even making eye contact with him, and you're grateful for that. He still unsettles you, even after all this time. The person you once were, the woman (who now seems like something of a naïve girl) who was so hopelessly in love with him, she doesn't seem so far away when his eyes meet yours, and time doesn't seem to be the same thing it was before he walked into that office. You sink into your sofa when you get home, head still spinning, feeling suddenly and emotionally drained. He shouldn't just be able to step back into your life, acting as if nothing's changed, when so much has happened.

There's a knock on your door.

Running a hand roughly through your hair, glancing in the mirror as you pass to make sure none of how you're falling apart is reflected on your face, you answer the door.

It's Harry, of course it's Harry.

"I haven't got anywhere to stay." He grins, somehow both sheepish and infuriating at the same time. "I'm glad you're still living here, or I would have rudely turned up at a total stranger's…"

Wordlessly, you let him in the door, closing it behind him. You walk through to your kitchen, still without saying anything, and he follows you, apprehension suddenly flooding his features.

"Could I just sleep on your couch tonight… I'll look into booking into a hotel tomorrow, until I can get a place, I-"

You shake your head at him slowly, cold washing over you. "You don't get to do this, Harry. You don't get to turn up, take the job that you lost the right to years ago, when you just walked away, and sway back in like you never left… you can pretend as much as you like that nothing really happened, that it wasn't the massive deal it was, but you're not going to make me lie down quietly about it all…"  
There's still something sickeningly calm in his face, in his voice. "Nikki, I know it's been a bit of a shock, me turning up like this, I just-"

You're practically spitting fire, now. "You just left, like we weren't anything, all those years ago, and then you practically vanished from my life, you didn't try hard enough to keep in contact… and you didn't turn back up when it mattered, you didn't turn back up when I needed you! You didn't think for one minute about me when you-"

Suddenly, there's a furnace in his eyes, and you thank heaven for that. Because the Harry you were once the most important thing to, the man you used to know, he fought to the death, he didn't watch from the sidelines. You can argue with a man you know. Perhaps you can make him realise everything he broke, everything he ruined.

"It's not all about you… didn't it occur to you for one moment that it was what I wanted to do, what I needed to do? Surely I'm a factor in my own life, I-"

"We could have talked about it. You could have told me that. Instead you don't tell me until weeks before you're leaving, and then you vanish from my life like we weren't ever anything and I-"

"We weren't ever anything, Nikki."  
That winds you, almost. You stare up at him, suddenly through wide, almost frightened eyes, like a deer in the headlights.

Suddenly you feel sick. Because you weren't 'ever anything', as you so eloquently put it, but you were something. You can't quite find the words for that something, for how you were, but it wasn't nothing.

You sound practically venomous, the next time something comes out of your mouth. "That makes it easier, does it, pretending you didn't walk away from something important? Something you shouldn't have?"

He shakes his head, that infuriating smile on his lips, as if he doesn't know how to handle you. "I spent something like seven years waiting for something to happen, Nikki, I… but you were… you were _you, _and you were having endless inappropriate boyfriends, ending every relationship you ever had disastrously, I-"

"This has got nothing to do with my personal life!" you snap, his taunts painful.

"Hasn't it? Every time I convinced myself I was going to take this somewhere, we were going to be more than best friends, you'd find another idiot, or you'd end up in bed with whichever policeman we were working with that week, and I-"

You have no defence to that attack on your character, your behaviour, other than to try and knock him down as hard as you can. You're still smarting as you speak. "Turns out we weren't any much good best friends, though, doesn't it? You vanished, Harry, you disappeared from my life!"

"I thought it was the easiest way… if I was going to go, I thought I'd be better to let you hate me a little, let you realise how utterly imperfect I've always been-"

You scoff, at that. "You think I thought you were perfect? Please, Harry, most of the time you annoyed the hell out of me! Most of the time we were at each other's throats! We never would have worked anyway, one of us would have probably killed each other within a month, we-"

He steps toward you, suddenly something dark in his eyes.

"Oh shut up." He murmurs, and there's something breathy in his voice, now.

"It was like I was supposed to start pretending you hadn't been there, like I was supposed to start pretending we hadn't been anything to each other, like I was-"

This time, when he cuts you off, his lips come crashing down on yours, his teeth crash against yours, with clumsiness and fire all at once. Before you even get a chance to think, he's backing you up against the side of your fridge, his hands either side of your face, his wet, hot mouth trailing down your throat, his tongue suddenly travelling across your collarbone.

You can't think, you can't even breathe. You lean your head back, moaning suddenly, and crash against your fridge.

That seems to bring his attention back to your face, for now, and his lips find yours again, but his hands have other ideas. They're snaking down the front of your blouse, leaving buttons spinning on the floor in their haste, infuriatingly skimming down your midline, ridding you of layers, not settling. You feel you nipples harden viciously against the purple lace of your newly exposed bra, and seconds later, Harry seems to notice it too, the fingers of his left hand sliding the clasp at the back open.

A warm, big hand cups around your breast, and you can hear yourself practically screaming into his mouth, as if from a distance. It's been so long. How he's practically got you writhing beneath him already has got something to do with that and a lot to do with the fact that he's been the object of your dreams for years, New York or no New York. It doesn't matter right now, because you can feel his growing erection through the thick material of his sensible work trousers, the gasps in his breath, how his mouth's trailing down towards your nipple, and you realise he's wearing too many clothes.

Unbuckling his belt and plunging your hand down his trousers, wrapping your fingers around him has him gasping against your skin before his mouth closes around your nipple, his hands sliding your tights (avec knickers) down your legs. You run your fingers slowly up and down him, dancing on his skin, taunting him, and then suddenly you grip him hard. It rids you of all breath, how he falls against you, and it rids you of ninety nine percent of your conscious, rational thought, as his teeth close around your nipple.

You squeeze him gently, running your fingers over the tip.

"You're so big." You breathe, and he pulls his head up to look at you, his eyes darker than you knew they could be, staring at you without displaying a single intention in the seconds before he slides one finger, followed almost instantly by two between your folds. You buck against him, both unprepared and have been waiting for his fingers all your life at the same time. He mouth's behind your ear now, nipping affectionately at the skin, and you're sliding his trousers and pants down to around his ankles. He hisses something in your ear, you're not sure what, but suddenly you know what he wants, what you want, and keening at the loss between your legs, you sink to your knees in front of him, not taking your eyes off his face as he realises what you're doing and tilts his head back in pre-emptive pleasure.

You close your mouth around him slowly, sliding you tongue along the underside, feeling him buck towards you involuntarily. You squeeze his balls lightly before letting him hit the back of your throat, hearing him groan.

"I won't… I won't last, Nikki…" he pants, and pulls you up roughly, hiking your skirt around your waist, lifting one of your legs, a lascivious smile on his face. His fingers brush against you, checking you're ready, coming away dripping.

He hovers at your entrance then, in the most infuriating way, and all of a sudden you need him, right in that moment.

"I need you, now." You breathe, and you guess he knows now's not the time for arguing. He lifts you onto him, thrusting deep into you, hitting exactly where you need it. You don't think you're going last long, either, once he's inside you, and he's rocking against you steadily, his large member filling you entirely. His lips find their way around your nipple again, and his fingers are suddenly rubbing exactly where you need them, between your legs. You throw your head back, staring at the ceiling, matching each of his thrusts with the very limited control you have.

He picks up the speed, and then you're screaming, clenching around him, still rocking, and suddenly feeling the warmth of his release within you. You keep tilting against him as he comes down from his own high, clutching at his hair, bringing his lips back to your own.

You don't want to talk to him, not right now. You'd rather keep his mouth occupied.

He carries you through to your bedroom, laying you between the sheets, pulling both of your remaining items of clothing off your bodies and tossing them to the side.

"I still hate you." You breathe, as he settles beside you, pulling the cover over both of you.

He kisses you to shut you up, and you find yourself smiling against his lips.

"You're making me start to forgive you." You pant, as his fingers find their mark between your legs again, and you want to keep that smile on his face. He slides a little down your body, kissing the skin between your breasts, his smile only widening.

"How much more do you want me to do, to make you forgive me?" he asks, laughing a little.

You find yourself smiling, and you continue pushing him down, opening your legs slightly wider. "Oh, plenty more." You laugh, watching as he trails kisses between your thighs, then finding exactly where you need him.

That's when you start screaming.

**That's a wrap! Hope you enjoyed!**


End file.
